


Rapture of the Shrine Maiden

by Kiiratam



Series: Blake's Fanfiction [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Blood and Gore, Bumbleby Week 2019, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fanfiction, Meta, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 08:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19866880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: An unauthorized work in the Ninjas of Love Universe (Please don't sue me! I love your books!)When her entire clan is slaughtered by the evil Spider clan, Miko, the last and least of her people, calls out for aid - and the goddess responds. Vengeance is coming.Part 1 of ?.By BlackCat13.(Thanks to my friends, R, W, & Y, putting up with me pestering them with weird questions all hours of the day. And BMBLB, for being the zoomiest. <3)((Takes place just before Volume 3, episode 7. (My BMBLB fic index) Written for Bumbleby Week 2019, day 4: AU))





	Rapture of the Shrine Maiden

She staggered forward, one bloody step after the next, up the winding shrine-way. Her blood was starting to pale, no longer the steady pulse of crimson life, but the white of exsanguinizing death. Behind her, the ravens feasted on throat and eye, plucking gory giblets from steaming wounds. They kept out of her way - their bellies were bottomless, but they respected the last, hopeless motions of the dying. Plenty of time to rip and tear when life had fled.

  
Her face was stained with soot and dirt, lined with the faint remains of tear tracks. She no longer had the luxury of tears. Only an adamant will kept her upright, and such an indomitable spirit held no place for mortal frailties.

  
Miko reached the summit, the altar in sight. And there, in view of her desperate hope, her will faltered. Her legs buckled, and fresh pain layered upon her present agonies, gilding the lily. The absurdity struck her a galvanizing blow, and she started to crawl forward, a horrible cackling in her throat.

  
She reached the altar a short eternity later. 'Goddess," she croaked, "I know you do not accept blood sacrifices. But hear my plead, written in my lifesblood. Grant me the power to avenge my clan! Grant me revenge! ...Grant me another chance." Miko sighed, breath fogging the polished stone. "Help me... please..."

  
She felt her heart give out a last, shuddering beat, then stop. A roaring filled her ears, and her vision faltered, the altar growing into a bright white light...

  
  
_"Hey, Blake! What're you writing?"_

  
_"Oh, hi, Ruby. Umm, just a story. Something in the Ninjas of Love universe."_

  
_"Cool! What's it about?"_

  
_"So far, blood and pain."_

  
_"Good start! Lots of drama! Buckets of blood! Guts and gore and everything girls are made of! ...So what comes next?"_

  
_"I'm trying figure out how to describe a goddess."_

  
_"Well, that's a tough one. Ummm, what about taking everyone's best characteristics, and putting them all together? So as kind as Yang, as smart as Weiss, as gutsy as Nora - you know. Anyway, I'm sure you can figure it out."_

  
_"Thanks."_

Miko's eyes blinked, shifting from the soft blue of pleading to a white of astonishment. She no longer felt every raw edge of slash wounds, and hideous sucking of her stabs. Even her knees no longer felt bruised.

  
And the altar was glowing, a pure, liquid light. She watched, unable to look away, as the light unfolded into a beautiful woman in a long white cloak. The overwhelming light pulsed away - not vanishing, but becoming contained like a candle placed in a lantern. Though nearly ten feet tall, she projected a maternal aura of comfort and domesticity. Miko had not felt such a warm calm since she was on her mother's apron strings, before the feud burned hot again.

  
Her healed throat as unfamiliar as her injuries had been, Miko gasped out, "My Lady."

  
Lady Yue set back her hood, smiling like starlight. "I have heard your plead, last of my children in this land. The Spider clan has sore beset you, but do not despair. For far to the west, many gather together to praise my name and works. I charge you to go to them, tell them of the sorrows you have suffered in this land, and lead them back, to scourge the Spider clan from the earth!" Her eyes blazed with incandescent fire, and Miko bowed her head in the face of such an outburst of righteous divine fury.

  
"My Lady," Miko began. "I am unworthy of the gifts you have already bestowed upon me. I thank you for my life, but I am the least of my clan. You have given Chameleon clan the gift of changing - our colors, our voices, even our features. But I am a wretched failure with your gifts - I cannot conceal myself in a shadow by mirroring it, I cannot infiltrate a gathering of the Fox clan by turning my hair red. I cannot even hold my colors steady in a mirror!" Her eyes flashed a deep red that faded into a pale, flickering pink, and, as her anger failed her completely, a blue-gray of grief. "I am the least and last of my people." She began to weep.

  
"Oh, my dear child! Do you look to the night sky and see that it is static?"

  
"No, my Lady. The moon and stars dance."

  
"So to is it with you! I have given you the greatest of gifts already, but it has been your clan who told you were a failure. Grieve their deaths, but do not think that excuses their mistreatment of you." She pointed at a flowering bush nearby, covered in long blossoming spikes of yellow and violet. "Pluck a flower from that plant."

  
Miko stumbled to her feet, and did as her goddess instructed.

  
"See how you have changed it? Without the leaves, and roots, it will die. Can you see that in your mind's eye?"

  
"Yes, my Lady."

  
"Now, look to the flower in your hand."

  
Miko gasped, nearly throwing the dead flower from her. Her hand shook, and the dried flower petals rustled against each other. "How - ? Did I- "

  
"It was all your power, already invested in you at the hour of your birth." Lady Yue smiled at her. "Now, look back to the living plant. You see how they bounce in the breeze, how they attract bees with sweet scents, and shining colors? How fares your plant?"

  
Miko laughed at the flower growing in her hands, roots spiraling down to the ground, leaves reaching towards the sky.

  
"Could any in your clan effect such transformations? You may be the last, but never the least. But beware-"

_"Hey, Weiss? Can I ask you a question?"_

  
_"What is it, Blake?"_

  
_"I'm writing a story, and I wrote myself into a corner."_

  
_"Okay. And you want me to do what?"_

  
_"I gave one of my characters a really powerful semblance, but I need a reason it won't just solve all the problems."_

  
_"What semblance?"_

  
_"The ability to transform things she touches into different things. So alive to dead, lead to silver, that sort of thing."_

  
_"Well. That would be really powerful. Why would you do that to yourself?"_

  
_"I can think of some really cool scenes based on it. But I need a drawback. Something painful."_

  
_"Hmm. Let me think. ...What about some kind of spiritual cost? So, the transformations she does reflect back on her? If she goes around death-touching people, then she starts dying herself. If she starts turning straw into gold daily, she turns everything she touches to gold, whether she wants to or not. That sort of thing."_

  
_"Weiss, you're a genius!"_

  
_"Yes, I know."_

  
_"Thanks!"_

"But beware-" Lady Yue admonished Miko. "Your transformations will reflect back on yourself. If you use this great gift for careless murder, your very soul will die. You can even be undone by great charities - if you wish to the feed the peasants with pure white rice, you may find every thing you touch to be turn to rice. You have a grand power, but the burdens placed upon you are similarly weighty."

  
Miko, sombered by her goddess' warning, bowed in obedience.

  
"I have one final gift for you, my child, to aid you in your quest." She clapped her hands, and a great carven statue bloomed from the ground. "This is a mighty warrior, and a most devious trickster. She stole the Herb of Immortality from Heaven's own table, and used it as a garnish. She strove with Giants under the Earth, and broke them open, making oni swarm underground and bedevil the surface. She taught Man the Riddle of Steel, and disrupted the Great Celestial Mandate. And she would not submit to the Judgment of Heaven, but made us hunt her down and bind her, according to our laws."

  
Miko gasped, and recoiled in horror. "The Devil Dragon of Iron! I do not like this gift, my Lady! I can fight when I must, hide when I can't. I can make the journey on my own, though the distances be tremendous. I do not wish this terror unleashed on the world again!"

  
Lady Yue cast such a look upon Miko that she suddenly felt five years old again, having just made a Very Stupid Statement. "Let me finish, little one. See you the golden bands about the Dragon's wrists and brow?"

  
"I see them, Great Lady."

  
"They bind the Dragon to a lesser form, and shackle her power, and the worst of her impulses. But should she prove troublesome, you have only to chant this mantra:" Lady Yue incanted,  
_"'Gone, gone, beast of imperishable steel,_  
_Forge a beast of soft and yielding gold,_  
_Shrink, shrink her shackles, make her kneel,_  
_If she does not do as she is told!'"_

  
Nodding, Miko repeated back the mantra.

  
"Well done. Chant it again, and the agony will stop. Keep that always in your mind, for she is a most vexatious beast. I hope that this journey will teach her of the woeful ways of her path, and she will become a willing servant of the Heavens. Can I trust you with this charge?"

  
"Great Lady, I begged for your aid. It would be monstrous to refuse your requests."

  
Lady Yue nodded. "Very well. Prepare yourself, I am freeing the Devil Dragon." She breathed out, and a coil of light emerged from her breath. It flowed over to the horrifying statue, enveloping it in radiance. The statue cracked, shedding stone, but it seemed to flow into the golden ornaments set upon it, growing smaller and smaller, until it was little bigger than Miko herself. It shifted shape and flowed as it did, until the light faded, and Miko found herself face to face with the Devil Dragon of Iron.

  
She was well-build, muscular, with a luxurious mane of shining steel-gray hair. She had only four fingers and toes, and was laid bare to the world. Miko blushed and nearly averted her eyes from the tremendous bounty of beautiful flesh before her eyes.

  
The Devil Dragon opened her eyes - large, expressive, deep enough to drown in. Pupils of arterial red stared back at her.

  
"Ah, a meal after my long imprisonment! Come here, tasty morsel!" Her voice was the roar of battle and the skirl of weapons.

  
Miko knew there was no time to waste, as the Devil Dragon took a forceful step forward. She chanted the mantra,  
_"'Gone, gone, beast of imperishable steel,_  
_Forge a beast of soft and yielding gold,_  
_Shrink, shrink her shackles, make her kneel,_  
_If she does not do as she is told!'"_

  
And the Devil Dragon roared as her golden bonds tightened about her wrists and brow. "What are you doing to me!?" She roared, her hair ablaze, pale fire spitting from her mouth. And took another step towards Miko. And another.

  
Miko blanched. But the Devil Dragon's roar became a whimper, and her legs collapsed under her. She knelt, crying in pain, trying to pry off her bindings. "Make it stop, make it stop! Good lady, save me!"

  
Knowing that she had to establish her dominance, Miko stepped forward, taking the Devil Dragon by the chin and forcing her to look into her eyes, silver with determination. "Do you swear to obey my commands? To protect me in my quest?"

  
"I swear, I swear, make it stop! I will obey your commands, I will protect you!"

  
Miko chanted the mantra again, and the Devil Dragon collapsed in relief, covered in sweat. Miko couldn't help but notice the Devil Dragon's trim lines, the smooth curve of her derrière, the powerful, ropey muscles of her back. But she forced her attention away. "Go down the mountain, and find clothes for yourself, and supplies for our long journey. Return here within the hour."

  
The Devil Dragon nodded her head, setting her hair to shining, and scrabbled down the path towards Miko's village.

  
The Lady Yue nodded in approval. "I see you can wield a firm hand. I hope for great things from your journey. You may find other companions on the road. Do not shun the Beast With No Shadow, the White Witch, or the Three-Eyed Raven. They will bring their own troubles, but such strength they have to give to your cause."

  
Miko bowed deeply. "Thank you, Great Goddess. I will not fail in your charge. I will take the Devil Dragon and go west, and restore your people to this land. And wipe the Spider clan from the face of the earth!"

  
A beatific smile crossed the goddess'face, and she flowed back into liquid light, and then away. Miko blinked several times, trying to adjust to a new, diminished world. She settled down to wait for the Devil Dragon's return.

  
Miko did not have to wait long, for presently the Devil Dragon came strutting up the path, brazen and bare as day, with two bundles slung over her shoulders. The four-fingered one strutted closer, noticing Miko's eyes dart around and change color rapidly. Miko tried to ignore the earthy tang of sweat, tried to ignore the swaying, the contrast of iron limbs and soft breasts. The curve of her hip, and the soft fur of her-"

_"Hey, Blake."_

  
_"Yang! Hi! Umm! How are you?"_ Oh no oh no oh no oh no-

  
_"What's that behind your back? New novel?"_

  
_"Yup! That's right! Nothing suspicious here!"_ Go away go away go away-

  
_"...Blake, are you okay? You're not acting like yourself. At all."_

  
_"Ha! That was a good one, Yang!"_ This is not working. At all.

  
_"Blake, seriously."_

  
_"..."_

  
_"..."_

  
_"... I was writing smut."_ About you. About what you look like naked.

  
_"Oh. Cool! Can I read it?"_

  
_"Um. It's not done yet?"_

  
_"Well, let me know. You know how I feel about smut."_

  
_"...Yeah, I do."_ What if she doesn't like it? ... What if she **does** like it?

  
_"I'll let you get back to it. See you at the Tournament!"_

  
_"See you there."_

The Devil Dragon lowered her burdens, smirking up at Miko. "I have completed my charge, Mistress."

  
"Why did you not put the clothes on?"

  
"You didn't ask me to do so."

  
"I am telling you to do so now." Miko held the mantra tightly in her mind, ready to start it.

  
The Devil Dragon locked eyes with her, blood red against the yellow of turmoil. Then she looked away, barking a laugh. She took a robe from the first bundle and belted it on. It didn't fit well, only emphasizing her stature and bold curves, but it was still a relief.

  
"You obtained all the essentials for a journey? Food, water, bedrolls, spare sandels, rope, flint and steel?"

  
"I did, Mistress. I have traveled many miles in my time, though seldom on legs this short."

  
Miko paused. "Have you a weapon?"

  
The Devil Dragon laughed. "Mistress, I AM a weapon. Even in this form, my strength can pound stones to dust, my speed is such that I can hold raindrops between my fingers, and I am as endless as the seas. We will not lack for strength of arms on this journey. Only, perhaps, for entertainment." She took in Miko, from her toes to crown, grinning broadly.

  
Despite herself, Miko shuddered - not from fear, but at the lasciviousness of the Devil Dragon's voice. She felt a growing warmth deep within herself, and hated that this monster could so easily charm her body, if not her mind. It would be so easy to chant the mantra, to make the Devil Dragon swear an oath to never look at her with lust, to never speak to her with such desires, to act as chaste and mild as a tame daughter of royalty.

  
But she didn't. Miko wondered at herself - was it weakness? Did she want to be at the mercy of the Devil Dragon's passions? Did she, deep within, long for what no other person had managed to do for her? Could a monster do it, if a mortal could not?

  
Or was it strength, to face down the temptations and blandishments of this evil, alluring immortal? If she could resist, with her own indomitable will and strength of character, would that not make her stronger? Would not the goddess be pleased with her strength, instead of relying on the promises of others?

  
She didn't chant the mantra, only started down the mountain path, to the west. Towards the means of her revenge, of the divine vengeance of Lady Yue. She would come back, at the head of a grand army, bringing Hell upon those who thought they could kill the Chameleon clan. Miko's eyes burned with violet flame as she walked, retribution and purpose searing in her mind.

  
Behind her, the Devil Dragon shouldered her burdens, a broad grin upon her face, howling with laughter inside. Her mistress had chosen to let her be - the Devil Dragon of Iron would make her regret that. Regret it with moaning in the night, with shaking legs, and screams of incandescent pleasure. She would be free of these bonds, her mistress removing them herself, a slave to mind-shattering joys. And she would have _such fun_ doing it.

  
In the west, a Beast with No Shadow slumbered, hunting in her dreams.

  
In the west, a White Witch looked to her iron rod, wondering at the strange castings in her future.

  
In the west, a Three-Eyed Raven waited at the crossroads, unblinking, staring to the north, south, and east.

_"Hey, Blake, we'd better leave soon if we want good seats for the singles match! Yang could be the first one up!"_

  
_"Okay, Ruby. Almost done."_

Their journey was only just beginning.


End file.
